Interesting twitter thread about a supposed wheat shortage:

[Tomconroy]

Link to tweet

Long thread.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. It's only of interest to those whom they export to. Now, if wheat production...

fell by 25%, we'd have a real problem.

[70sEraVet]

3. I have been one of those people claiming that there is going to be widespread famine.

Im glad for that Twitter feed from Dr. Taber, but the thought of vast wheat fields that don't get planted or harvested, still spells "starvation' to me. Starvation for SOMEBODY!

[NickB79]

4. The fertilizer shortage is a bigger concern

Even before the war, the spike in natural gas prices tripled ammonia fertilizer prices. This is from fall 2021.

https://fortune.com/2021/11/04/energy-crisis-food-shortage-security-fertilizer-prices-yara-ceo-madagascar-cop26/

The world is facing the prospect of a dramatic shortfall in food production as rising energy prices cascade through global agriculture, the CEO of Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara International says.

“I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest,” said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of the Oslo-based company. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis.”

Farmers in the northern hemisphere locked in a lot of fertilizer last fall, so they're partially insulated from the spike now. But this fall in the southern hemisphere, and fall-planted wheat in the northern hemisphere, is going to be brutal.

[NickB79]

6. Not practical with modern farming practices

Most big farmers no longer run combined operations where they raise livestock and crops. Farms run more like factories now, not family farms of 60 years ago. They specialize, either cash cropping and sell their grain, or they feedlot their cattle and purchase feed. And the cost of shipping all that manure hundreds of miles back to fields would break their business models.

[NickB79]

9. $10/lb ground beef or chicken wouldn't go over well with voters

Just like $4/gal gas. The big agribusinesses will pass the costs down to the consumers, while the small farmers will just go out of business altogether.

And when you're trying to get 200 bushels/acre from your fields of hybrid corn, manure doesn't have enough nitrogen boost compared to synthetic fertilizer. Horse manure is actually pretty low in nitrogen, cow manure somewhat better; only chicken manure has sufficient nitrogen to rival anhydrous ammonia.

My dad farmed a small (125 acre) combined operation farm for 30 years. Deep black topsoil, crop rotation schedule of corn, soy, alfalfa, and oats, and application of manure from our 50-head dairy operation and 200-head hog operation. We still needed supplemental anhydrous ammonia to get maximum yields. And, we were still dirt poor more years than not.

We've bred strains of crops to be so high-yielding, we literally don't have enough shit to feed them anymore. That's the downside of the Green Revolution: our crops are nitrogen hogs. But we can't not grow them, because we have 8 billion mouths to feed on this planet.

We've really painted ourselves into a corner going into the 21st century. I'm all but certain our food production systems will fall apart in the next 20 years as climate change goes into overdrive.

[NickB79]

7. Not practical with modern farming practices

Most big farmers no longer run combined operations where they raise livestock and crops. Farms run more like factories now, not family farms of 60 years ago. They specialize, either cash cropping and sell their grain, or they feedlot their cattle and purchase feed. And the cost of shipping all that manure hundreds of miles back to fields would break their business models.